The Echo Hub provides a simple interface for managing all your connected devices, supporting Zigbee, Thread and Bluetooth Low Energy protocols to connect over 140,000 home devices like lights, thermostats, cameras, plug sockets and speakers.
Amazon Echo Show features an eight-inch slim display, can mount to walls or stand alone on surfaces and features Amazon’s Map View to provide a visual way of managing rooms and devices.
What is the Echo Hub?
Amazon unveiled an interesting hardware product at their Devices event: Echo Hub is an eight-inch wall-mounted tablet intended to serve as the hub of all your smart home devices, like security camera feeds from Ring and other vendors, Echo speakers’ volume settings, Map View features in your home to map all of them out and then directly control them using Alexa app rather than scroll through long lists on it.
Amazon claims that their hub can support local connections for certain smart home devices, reducing response times to as fast as 300ms with this mode. Not all major devices will support it yet but chances are good it could work for popular ones like Nest, Ecobee and Ring.
Other features of smart homes include using a hub to play music, answer questions, get news, sports scores, weather and more from various sources. Furthermore, it has a temperature sensor to help monitor your home’s environment as well as speakers that automatically adjust sound output according to room acoustics.
The Echo Hub features a slim design that allows it to blend in effortlessly into any home environment. Available in white or black finishes, you can either mount it on a wall or place it flat using an optional stand. Upon approaching it, its screen automatically comes alive; personalising it further by showing your favourite photos can also be achieved this way. It also works with Alexa Routines so you can set custom automations across various parts of your home using voice control.
It’s a smart speaker
Like its Echo devices, the Hub can control smart home products via voice control or tapping on its touchscreen display. But unlike previous models, this one offers an exclusive, customisable dashboard to manage smart home devices – giving users convenient control without needing their smartphone or voice command to do it!
Customers can easily see their thermostat’s current temperature on the screen and quickly activate a Routine that turns it on or off, view multiple security camera feeds simultaneously, enter passcodes to arm or disarm their alarm system quickly and conveniently arm/disarm their system remotely via passcode entry, all from one central hub plugged directly into an outlet or powered with PoE (Power over Ethernet) power source to connect directly with compatible devices.
Amazon Echo Hub is proud to use renewable energy, featuring carbon offset capabilities to help reduce customers’ environmental impact. Customers can find more information about this feature both on its device detail pages as well as on Amazon Product Sustainability Fact Sheets that come packaged with every Alexa-compatible device sold by them.
Adaptive Content is another new feature, employing on-device computer vision technology to adjust on-screen content based on customer proximity to the device. For instance, when customers are located far away, their hub may display content designed for distant viewing–for instance a news headline or recipe inspiration–while when closer enough it changes into more customized experiences like playlists or additional news articles.
And this hub can work with an extensive selection of home automation brands and products, including Hue lights and bulbs, Ring doorbells, security systems, smart locks and more. Support for Zigbee Thread Sidewalk standards as well as Bluetooth is offered; Alexa skills may even be enabled! Plus it pairs directly with existing hubs such as Hue Bridge for faster command execution – plus it supports up to five cameras and video doorbells making this an attractive solution for homeowners seeking a single device to manage their whole house!
It’s a smart home hub
A smart home hub is a device that collects data from various devices on your network and forwards it for processing. Most often used to manage multiple connected devices such as cameras and locks. You can access live camera feeds as well as control other smart home products with this hub device. Most smart home hubs come equipped with touchscreen displays supporting various protocols like Zigbee and Thread; connecting wirelessly or through Ethernet (with appropriate PoE adapter) adapters is possible as well.
Amazon’s Echo Hub may be their inaugural dedicated smart home hub, but it faces competition. Many smart speakers also function as hubs allowing you to pair and control devices through Alexa; however, these may not support all protocols used in your home such as Z-Wave and Zigbee; dedicated hubs typically offer greater compatibility as well as built-in support for any hardware they control.
The Echo Hub features a touch display and can be mounted to a wall or placed on a countertop using its stand accessory. Compatible with over 140,000 cameras, lights, locks, plugs, thermostats and speakers that support several standards – it runs off Wi-Fi or Ethernet power, has upgraded voice recognition that ups its performance in loud or windy environments by up to ten times faster performance and supports multi-room audio with its music player featuring clear highs and dynamic mids – playing songs from Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify SiriusXM or Audible as well as providing news or weather updates and answering any of your questions or answering back your queries about them!
The Echo Hub also comes equipped with an innovative feature called Map View that creates a visual representation of your home, enabling you to pin connected devices directly into each room. This is an ideal feature for smart home users looking for a simpler user experience that doesn’t involve scrolling through long lists of devices or trying to remember the name of specific lights. It will soon be rolling out to other Echo devices.
It’s a voice assistant
Amazon’s Echo line is already well-established, featuring speakers and smart displays designed to improve everyday living. Now, the company has introduced an Echo Plus device designed to manage every aspect of connected home living. It’s called the Echo Hub, an 8-inch touchscreen panel created to serve as a focal point for smart home devices. Unlike its more feature-laden cousin, Echo Show 15, this device prioritizes controlling smart home devices. The Hub will support major connectivity protocols like Matter, Thread and Zigbee while also featuring Map View – an innovative feature which scans your home before providing a detailed floorplan that you can use to control devices – for instance if you want to turn on your lamp in your bedroom, simply tap its icon on the map! Available later this year starting from $180 the Hub can be ordered now from Amazon!
As with other Alexa-enabled devices, the Echo Hub allows you to perform numerous tasks using just your voice. From playing music and searching the internet to setting reminders and more. Plus it comes equipped with its own speaker so it can answer questions about schedules, weather and traffic conditions as well as answer any inquiries that arise about you! Its microphone utilizes far-field technology which detects your voice from across a room while its loud speaker fills a large space – perfect for multi-room audio!
Concerns have been expressed over how easily Echo and other voice assistants access private conversations within your home, as well as nonverbal cues like footstep cadence that may indicate who is present. Amazon has addressed these worries by informing consumers that recordings only stream when their wake word is activated; additionally, these recordings can always be deleted via Alexa App.
